


over your hill

by temerity (forsanethaec)



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, handjobs, serious tags, sexual healing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-01
Updated: 2014-02-01
Packaged: 2018-01-10 18:58:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1163306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forsanethaec/pseuds/temerity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis takes care of Niall after his surgery.</p>
            </blockquote>





	over your hill

**Author's Note:**

> much love to lucy, greta and mady, all of whom suggested post-surgery lovies when i asked what sort of nouis i should write. smooch! title is from mumford & sons, "after the storm."

"Louis Tomlinson!"

Louis hears it before Niall's managed to get the front door fully open. "I didn't expect you to actually come!"

Louis grins. "Careful what you wish for." He looks Niall over -- hunched on his forearm crutches, looking rumpled and tired. "Jesus, I'm sorry I made you get up. You're a proper cripple, look at you."

"That I am." Niall's listing back and forth, a dopey smile on his face. Louis has bags of groceries and video games and his mum made a casserole, because she says that's just what you do for a person who's laid up in their house. But Niall's not looking at anything but Louis' face. 

Louis laughs. "Are you on quite a lot of painkillers right now, Nialler?"

"Sure am. Come on in, man. Keep me company and fetch me things."

The house is mostly clean and silent until they get to the den. Niall's made a nest of blankets on the couch, surrounded by snacks and flowers and Xbox controllers. 

Louis watches him limp back to the couch, crutches clicking against their metal joints as they press into the carpet. He's so distracted by what a state Niall's in that he almost forgets he's here to be all maternal and shit. 

He swoops in last-second and helps Niall set down onto the couch, holding him beneath his elbow and at the small of his back. He's reminded of how they used to play pretend on stage, acting like one of them was injured, hobbling around together. But this is real.

Niall lifts his leg onto the ottoman in front of him, elevated on a stack of pillows, and drops his crutches against the corner of the couch. Louis sits down gingerly beside him, eyes on Niall's surgery scar, visible past the hem of his basketball shorts -- an ugly black rope of stitches holding together the scab that crosses his kneecap. 

"Ben was here earlier." Niall draws it out on a sigh, leaning his head back. "Brought me grapes." 

"I know, I saw your tweet," Louis says. "I'm on duty now. All part of your vast, all-powerful support network, innit."

"'Duty,'" Niall parrots. He's snickering. 

Louis shakes his head. "You're hopeless." 

Niall reaches out and squeezes him around the back of the neck. "Ah, you guys are the best. All showing up to entertain little ol' me. Amazing." 

"You alright, then? Feeling good?"

"I'm definitely kinda stoned," Niall says, grinning. "Gotta take this stuff for the next three weeks. I don't think I'm gonna remember any of this when it's all over." 

"Your knee doesn't hurt, though?"

"Can't feel much of anything right now." Niall looks down at it, frowning. "It's fucked all up, mate, did you see?"

"Worse than it should've been, right?" Louis tucks his legs under him, shifting closer to Niall. It's so weird to see him house-ridden, hopped up on painkillers, stuck like this for the foreseeable future. It doesn't suit him at all.

Niall sighs. "It was just, like, more of a procedure than I'd bargained for, you know? But it's alright. I think they fixed me." He touches his knee with light fingertips, a thoughtful look on his face, and then he looks up at Louis, shrugging. "Guess we'll find out."

"More importantly," Louis says, "why didn't you get your stitches in the shape of a lightning bolt like I told you to?"

Niall snickers. "Nah, they wouldn't let me. It's gonna be a beast when it's healed, though, don't you reckon? We'll have to name it."

"Not to be weird, but -- can I touch it?" 

"Knew you'd ask." Niall grins. "Yeah, have at it." 

Louis reaches out and touches the stitches gently. They feel alien, set in Niall's skin. He brushes his fingers over the side of Niall's knee to feel something normal.

"When're you getting the stitches out?" he asks. 

"Week after next," Niall says. "Thank fuck. They itch like crazy. 

"And does your leg feel weird? Or, like, different?"

"Rest of it's aching," Niall says. He's watching Louis' fingers, stroking his skin lightly where it's still got tacky spots from recently removed bandages. "Can't get a proper stretch on either side. Can't even walk, can I." He lolls his head back. Louis is still touching him, like he can't stop until he's made Niall better.

Niall looks back at him and smiles a little. "Glad you came over, man." 

"Please, least I could do. Have to help those less fortunate and all." Niall laughs. "What do you want to do? Want to play FIFA? Want me to make you a really, really tall sandwich? Want to Skype with Zayn or something?"

"I was talking to him and Perrie before Ben and Meredith came over," Niall says. Louis frowns a little. He'd kind of pictured Niall languishing here all alone until he, Louis, bringer of light and snacks, appeared on the newly handicapped-accessible doorstep and made everything perfect forever. 

"FIFA, then?" he asks in lieu of vocalizing any of this. 

Niall's laugh is low and rough and slow, rolling out of his throat, and Louis feels it through his own chest. He kind of wishes he were on painkillers, too, just so he could get on Niall's level. 

"You're gonna beat me," Niall says.

"You're high," Louis says fondly, scritching at the crown of Niall's head, right in his dusky roots. "I'll go easy on you, won't I? That's what I'm here for."

"So nice," Niall says. His eyes are closed now and he's smiling. "Gimme a controller. I might fall asleep." 

"Perfect. Let's go." 

Niall manages to play half a round with his eyes open before they slip shut again. His fingers are still moving on the controller, and his game was pretty loopy to begin with, so it takes Louis longer than it should to notice his competition is napping.

He puts the game on pause and reaches out to take Niall's controller. 

"Already miss playing real football," Niall mutters.

Louis' fingers collide with Niall's hand. He lets them rest there, holding still. "You awake, pal?"

Niall hums in answer. "It's gonna be ages before I can play again." The corner of his mouth tugs down, and Louis' heart twinges. 

"It won't be that long," he says. He tugs the controller gently out of Niall's hands and just twines their fingers together, aimless. "And when you can, you'll be better than ever, right? No braces, no worries anymore. That's the whole point."

"I know." Niall turns to the side, bending his good knee like he'd be curling up if he could do it easily. His eyes open slowly, trained on Louis, and Louis feels the air go still. 

"You're gonna be alright, Nialler," Louis says softly. "You know that. You're fine." 

"I know," Niall says again. He squeezes Louis' fingers, gently. "Just nice to hear you say it."

"You're alright." Louis can feel the beat of his own heart as he shifts forward. "You're alright," he repeats, tugging his hands away from Niall's to pull him into a hug. He holds Niall tight around the shoulders, feeling the answering press of Niall's arms around his sides and his fingers on his back.

Louis is out of his element. He hardly ever sees Niall all low and vulnerable like this, seeking reassurance. Niall's usually the one who gives it, not the one who asks. 

"You're more than alright, love," he murmurs into Niall's neck. He's not sure what makes him say it, only that he can't handle seeing Niall sad.

He feels Niall give a shaky little sigh.

"Hey, Louis," he mumbles, still clinging on, twisted sideways on the couch with his legs stretched out. "I need food." 

"Right!" Louis pulls back with a deep breath like he's surfacing from underwater. He claps his hands together. "Food. What'll it be? Your wish is my command."

Niall smiles muzzily up at him from under the soft flop of his hair across his forehead. "Juice," he says. "And nachos. With that steak that's in the fridge. Did you eat? I think there's egg rolls and edamame in there. And cake, maybe. Might've eaten that, I can't remember." 

"I brought casserole." 

"What kind?"

"I don't know, are there different kinds of casseroles?"

"Think your mum would make something chicken," Niall muses. "Fuck it, bring it all." 

"How do you know I didn't make the casserole?" Louis mutters as he heads for the kitchen. He hears Niall laughing. It makes him smile to have cheered him up. 

He brings it all on a tray, complete with napkins and a flower in a glass, stolen from one of the ten thousand bouquets scattered around the house. 

"Do the painkillers make you munch, or is this just you being you?"

"Unclear," Niall says, grinning and holding out his hands for the food like a little kid. "You're the _best_ , oh my God." 

Together, they clear every plate but the last of the nachos. It's around then that Louis notices Niall's starting to wince. 

"You okay?"

"Yeah," Niall says tightly. "Will you move the tray, there?" Louis lifts it off his legs and Niall leans down with a sigh, running his palms lightly over his knee. "Keep forgetting to take my pill at the right time." 

"Oh, shit. Want me to get 'em?" 

"They're here." He finds the bottle among the remotes and things cluttering the ottoman and downs a pill with the rest of the juice in his glass. 

He leans back, sighing and closing his eyes. Louis watches him, feeling a little out of place. He's never liked being around sick people --not that Niall's sick, but it's even stranger to see that sort of look on him, when usually he's carefree and effusive and doesn't let anything hold him back.

"Does it kick right in?" Louis asks. He reaches out and rubs Niall's bare calf absently below his bad knee, just to feel like he's helping. 

Niall shrugs. "Hard to tell," he says. "I'll pull through." He frowns a little, eyes still closed. "That's nice, though." 

"What, this?" Louis sweeps his thumb over the tight muscle of Niall's skinny leg. 

A smile twitches in the corner of Niall's mouth. "Yeah," he says. "I'm all in knots. That leg's not happy, it thinks it's gonna atrophy."

Louis grins. He shifts over to sit on the ottoman beside Niall's knee, kneading the meat of his calf. "Not if we have anything to say about it, eh?" 

Niall hums in answer, and then he doesn't say anything else for a while. Louis keeps on rubbing, squeezing at the muscle with his thumbs and fingers. He switches to Niall's other leg eventually, even though there's nothing much wrong with it besides not being properly walked on. Niall hasn't moved for a few minutes, and Louis expects him to be asleep when he next looks up. But Niall is watching him, eyes half-lidded, cheeks pink. 

Louis' fingers stall. "That doesn't hurt, does it?"

"No," Niall murmurs. "Feels good." 

Louis feels a little overheated beneath his skin, maybe from all this massaging he's doing, kneading like a persistent cat. He moves his hands up to Niall's thighs, one on each leg, squeezing at the muscles. He hears Niall's exhale push shakily out of his mouth. 

"Good?" he asks quietly. 

"Yeah," Niall says. 

Louis watches his hands move higher up Niall's thighs and then back down, like they're someone else's hands, like they're on someone else's thighs. He slips his fingers beneath the hems of Niall's shorts and rucks them halfway up, pushing his thumb into Niall's muscle in little circles. It makes Niall moan, quiet and slight but unmistakable. Louis doesn't look up, and he licks his lips and doesn't say anything right away either when he sees the slight bulge of Niall's dick beneath his shorts. It's pushing the fabric up just enough to be noticeable. Niall's eyes are closed again, his head tipped back as Louis rubs at the inside of his thigh where his skin is soft. 

"Want a backrub, too?" Louis asks. His voice comes out rough, and he coughs. He can't help but grin when Niall lifts his head to look at him, eyes a little wild.

"Jesus, Louis, all I needed was someone to come and fetch me nachos," he says, strained.

"You know me," Louis says. He licks his lips again and sees Niall's eyes flick down to the movement. "Always give you more than you ask for, don't I." 

He switches back from the ottoman to the couch, sitting almost flush against Niall's side. "Lean against me, love," he murmurs, putting an arm around his shoulders. 

Niall doesn't hesitate before shifting until his back is almost flush with Louis' chest. 

Louis pushes the heels of his palms into Niall's tense muscles, working out knots with his thumbs and knuckles. He presses circles into the curve where Niall's neck meets his shoulders, into the spaces along his spine and the exposed expanse of his upper back beneath his vest. 

Niall rocks back and forth under the pressure of his hands, breath coming in little soundful sighs. Louis squeezes at Niall's upper arms, and Niall sinks against him, melting. 

Somehow Louis is more comfortable having Niall this close than he has been at any other point leading up to it. It feels safest, most normal, almost, to have him like this, where Louis knows he's making Niall better, where he can feel it happening beneath his hands. He's breathing very shallowly, and so is Niall, neither of them speaking. Niall's still half-hard beneath his shorts, Louis can see it. For his part, he's trying to ignore the heat collecting in the pit of his stomach. He wants to focus on the task at hand. 

Niall tips his head forward when Louis digs his thumbs into the muscles at the back of his neck, stroking his fingers along Niall's throat, into the dip of his collarbone. The exposed skin at the top of Niall's spine is soft-looking and smooth. Not really thinking about what he's doing, Louis bends to press his lips to it. 

He hears Niall stifle a little gasp. "Louis, what are we doing?" he asks, a hazy urgency to his voice. 

"Distracting you 'til your meds kick in?" Louis suggests mindlessly. He really wants to kiss Niall on that sweet patch of skin again, but Niall's twisting against him, turning to look. 

They meet each other's eyes for just a second before Niall is stretching up to kiss Louis on the mouth. The angle is awkward and Louis isn't entirely ready for it, so it takes them a second of blindly shifting bodies to do it right. Niall winds up cradled in Louis' arms, turned into him at the waist. 

Louis' hands slide into Niall's hair automatically and he hears himself whine, parting his lips under the uncertain press of Niall's tongue. Niall cups Louis' jaw with his free hand, nipping up into his mouth while Louis' holds him. They're both gasping when they finally have to come up for air. Louis' head is spinning. He wants that to happen again.

"That's the best get-well-soon present so far," Niall says, ducking shyly against Louis' neck, "I mean, apart from the edible arrangement from Harry, did you see that thing? It was massive." 

Louis had seen it in the kitchen; it was ridiculously massive, even half-eaten, and he will not let it defeat him. "No, no, no," he says, "that won't do. Will I break you if I sit in your lap?"

"What?" Niall looks up at him, wet mouth open in half-drugged, turned-on confusion. 

"I wanna get you off, Niall," Louis murmurs, grinning. He's rewarded for his temerity with the flush that deepens across Niall's cheeks. 

"Oh," Niall says, "no, just, if we're careful, I think -- Jesus Christ, Louis." 

Louis has tugged Niall's basketball shorts down around his thighs with one hard yank before he can talk himself out of it and climbed delicately across him, high up in his lap so he doesn't put undue weight on his legs where they haven't got couch under them. 

"That okay?"

"Yeah," Niall breathes. 

"Thank God you go commando," Louis mutters. He looks down at Niall's cock, half-hard against his thigh, and then at Niall, staring up at him with his lips parted and his hair all ruffled, already looking debauched. 

He touches Niall hesitantly at first, sliding his fingers beneath his cock and feeling it twitch in his palm. He bites his lip as he looks at it, squeezing lightly, letting Niall get hard the rest of the way. It doesn't take him long, considering he's well on his way to being on drugs. 

"That's fuckin' it," Niall breathes, head tipped back. "I am so glad this is happening." 

Louis slides his lips against Niall's neck. He's shy, suddenly, out of words after he's already gone and gotten Niall half-naked and climbed in his lap. He just wants Niall to feel good again, to forget that things are shitty. Honestly, he just wants to kiss him about a million times. He doesn't know where that impulse was hiding that it's only now come out in force, but he likes it a whole lot. 

Niall's hand is in his hair and he's breathing shakily in Louis' ear while Louis sucks along the stretch of his throat, jacking him off languidly. The taste of Niall's skin is addictive. Louis shifts his hips forward and back in Niall's lap, restless, baring his teeth. 

"Let me, Tommo," Niall says. "Oh, fuck. Careful." 

"Shit." Louis pulls off Niall's neck with a wet noise. "Do you need me to get off?" 

"Yeah," Niall says, but he's wearing a dirty grin, and then Louis gets the double entendre. "But it'll be easier if I do it. Can't have you, like, riding me, really, in this state." He's blushing brilliantly, all the way down into the neck of his vest, but he holds Louis' gaze as he says it. 

"Next time, maybe," Louis murmurs, leaning in to whisper it in Niall's ear and then bite his earlobe. He feels Niall's fingers fumbling at his flies and shifts closer, one hand still wrapped around Niall's dick and the other arm tight around his shoulders. "When you're well again, give me a call." 

"You'll be here," Niall mutters. His fingers keep slipping on the button of Louis' jeans. Louis wonders if he's starting to get stoned again. "Not gonna let you leave now. You're my new favorite nurse." 

"We should get me a costume," Louis giggles. He feels drunk. "Let me help, love." 

He undoes the zip as wide as it'll go, and Niall reaches in the front of his shorts to get his hand around Louis' dick, hard and trapped too long behind too many layers of clothing.

"Oh, God," Louis says, tipping his face into Louis' shoulder, rolling his hips forward. "Niall, yeah, that's perfect." It's not that Niall's technique is very coordinated so much as it's the soft heat of his palm and the fact that they're kinda-sorta having bonafide sex now, in Niall's well-lit den in the middle of the day with FIFA paused in the background. 

Niall groans a little into Louis' neck, and then he's turning his head to find Louis' lips again, kissing him with more enthusiasm than aim. It's wet and dirty and it goes on and on, Niall sucking on Louis' tongue while they wank each other off. Louis whines, pressing himself closer, his hand bumping Niall's in between them as they both speed up. 

"Are you getting close, Niall?" Louis gasps against the corner of Niall's mouth. His hips tick forward as Niall rubs a thumb up beneath the head of his cock. "You gonna come for me, babe?" 

Niall groans in answer, dropping his head into the crook of Louis' shoulder and fucking into Louis' tight fist, using the weight of him as an anchor to keep his legs from jostling too much."Feels so good," he mumbles. His free hand is tight in the too-long hair at the nape of Louis' neck. Louis tips his head forward to make Niall pull, feeling sparks shooting down beneath his skin. 

He licks the sweat off his upper lip, then off the side of Niall's neck. Everything tastes like Niall and smells like sex and Louis is really, really close to nutting all over the front of Niall's shirt, but he wants Niall to come first. This is about Niall feeling good; that Louis gets to feel good too is just a happy consequence. 

"Shit," Niall says. "Shit, keep doing that. Ah, Christ." Louis is rubbing the head of his cock and smearing the slick down to wank him faster. 

"Like that?" Louis asks, almost all on breath into Niall's ear. He scrapes his teeth over the shell of it, and then he goes for Niall's mouth, right as Niall's hips buck beneath him and he feels the warm wet of come over his fingers. He kisses Niall through it, swallows down the desperate raspy noises he makes. Louis has heard them plenty of times on the bus and shit, but God, it feels good to make them happen. 

"Louis," Niall sighs into his mouth when he's gone boneless against the couch. He quickens the pace of his hand, holding Louis close at the small of his back. "Come on. I want you to come." 

"I'm gonna," Louis breathes. "I'm fucking close." 

Niall's free hand comes up to the side of Louis' face. He touches Louis' lower lip with his thumb, eyes lidded low and fixed on Louis'. 

"Open," he murmurs. Louis feels heat roll through him. Post-coital painkillers Niall is fantastically bold. He parts his lips and Niall slips his thumb in, the rough pad of it sliding against Louis' tongue. Louis closes his eyes and sucks, moaning in the back of his throat. Niall's going to get him off like this, wanking him and giving him something to suck on. 

Niall's fingers are tight at the hinge of Louis' jaw. He twists his fist around Louis' dick and Louis comes with a whimper that's muffled behind the seal of his lips. 

Niall pulls his thumb away gently once Louis stills. It brings a trail of spit with it, and they both laugh and that feels amazing -- still being silly together in the aftermath of whatever they've just started. It's Louis' new favorite part along with every other part. 

"Is your knee okay?" he asks, just a little sheepish. 

"Think so. Careful how you go, there." Niall only winces a little as Louis climbs off him. "I think my medicine kicked in, like, halfway through all that. I feel so good right now."

Louis wipes himself off with a napkin from their snack tray earlier and tucks his dick back in his pants. "Yeah," he says, handing the napkin to Niall, "medicine or that I'm a sex god."

Niall grins. "Could be that," he says. 

They just look at each other for a second, and then Louis bursts out laughing, burying his face against Niall's arm. He feels Niall press a kiss to the top of his head, just quiet, as though they do it all the time, and it makes his heart feel like it's glowing in his chest. He stays still and close for a while, trying to match the paces of their breathing. 

"Hey," he says when he finally sits up. "What're you doing rest of the day? Got anyone else in the queue?" 

"You're it." Niall grins. "D'you have something in mind?" 

"Well," Louis says, walking his fingers carefully across Niall's stomach, "I was thinking -- this situation of yours. I don't want to see it as a restriction. I'd rather we use it as a reason to, like, get creative, do you know what I mean? Find out just how handi-capable you really are?" 

Niall throws his head back laughing. "Ah, Louis," he says. "You say the sweetest things." 

"You love it," Louis says. He puts an arm around Niall's shoulders and nudges their noses together. 

"Yeah," Niall whispers, just before Louis kisses him again, because that's allowed now. That's a thing he gets to do, with sweet, resilient Niall, Niall who kisses back, Niall who doesn't seem so worried anymore, as long as he's got Louis close.


End file.
